


just let me adore you

by holtzmanns



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff ish, M/M, Smut, WHERE DID THIS COME FROM, who knows fam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:08:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22150807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holtzmanns/pseuds/holtzmanns
Summary: Brock doesn’t have any connections left in Nashville anymore, either. Most of his friends have moved on to bigger things, left the city that had kept them in touch in the past. His family isn’t in Nashville, and neither is his work. But LA has many fellow queens and some friends, too, and even some distant cousins and-Jose.
Relationships: Brooke Lynn Hytes/Vanessa Vanjie Mateo
Comments: 26
Kudos: 74





	just let me adore you

**Author's Note:**

> Haven't written a boy fic like this one in a while, too caught up in all the lesbian aus. Thank you writ and barbie for helping me with this and making me laugh my head off while writing it. Hope you enjoy it, and let me know what you think if you want to! Title from 'Adore You' by Harry Styles. Thank you writ for betaing <3

Brock’s new LA apartment, despite being half the size of his Nashville place, feels bigger. Emptier. 

Maybe it’s all the boxes he hasn’t gotten around to unpacking. Maybe it’s the way his cats are still nestled in their kennels despite the opened doors, too afraid to leave the fleece blankets and explore their new home. Or maybe it’s the fact that even though he’s spent a lot of time in LA, he’s always had somewhere else to go back to. Somewhere else that’s considered ‘home’.

Except now, LA is his home. Or it will be, eventually, once he gets used to it. 

The move makes sense, career wise, because being anchored to Nashville when he’s outgrown it isn’t logical anymore. It’s a city of too many bachelorette parties at his home bar and way too much country songs playing on the radio, and the subtle southern twang in everyone’s voice that he’s been afraid of accidentally adopting himself, these last few years. 

LA is where his booking manager is based out of. LA is where he can make stronger connections that’ll help catapult his career in the direction that it deserves to be in. LA is warm - as warm as Nashville, yes, but now he’ll have regular access to the beach, a chance to let his curls get wilder than usual in the ocean air, and to let his skin get a sunkissed glow, provided that he won’t burn to a crisp first. 

Brock doesn’t have any connections left in Nashville anymore, either. Most of his friends have moved on to bigger things, left the city that had kept them in touch in the past. His family isn’t in Nashville, and neither is his work. But LA has many fellow queens and some friends, too, and even some distant cousins and-

Jose.

Brock hasn’t told Jose about the move. They haven’t really been talking much, and it makes sense that they’re growing apart, no longer tied down by NDAs and keeping up a storyline or by having to share a tour bus. It’s given them space to breathe, yes, but it also feels strange, no matter how freeing it is. 

Brock doesn’t get a morning text when he wakes up anymore, texts that used to be filled with so many nonsensical emojis that he would have no idea where Jose even found them. But then again, Brock doesn’t send any himself, either. He and Jose don’t have their late night phone calls or facetimes that they used to when they’d miss each other just a little bit too much, and it’s not out of the ordinary, the fact that they’ve drifted. Because it’s been awhile, and the rubber band that had tied them together has snapped. They’re free floating, and apparently the paths drawn by their newfound ability to move aren’t meant to cross with one another.

Why would they? When they both travel, they both are free to involve themselves with other people, and they used to be based in different cities. Except that they’re not anymore.

They have the same home base now, because Jose lives in LA too.

Brock thinks back to a year and a half ago, when they were sprawled on Jose’s couch in his apartment and Jose had been poking his shoulder, trying to convince him to move to LA. Saying that it would be a good career move, and why was he still in Nashville, anyway?

Back then, things had been so fresh and new. They’d finished filming Drag Race, and their season wouldn’t air until the next year. Being able to wrap his arms around Jose, hold him close without any cameramen trying to capture the moment had been thrilling, almost freeing, even. But it had felt too soon. Too soon to leave Nashville because it still had been his  _ home. _

But now? It’s not Brock’s home anymore. Not when being able to perform, to do what he loves to do and dance every night gives him that same feeling of comfort, of security, that his bed in Nashville used to provide. The fact that he’s in control, the fact that he doesn’t have to be tied down to a certain place, but rather just needs that feeling of satisfaction in his heart to feel like he’s complete.

Brock wonders what the Jose from a year and a half ago would think. He wonders what Jose will think  _ now.  _

He debates on whether he should tell Jose. Let him know. Do exes do that? Let each other know that they’ll be in the neighbourhood for the foreseeable future? A warning of sorts, or maybe a homecoming?

Brock’s not sure which one it’ll be, which one he even wants it to be. 

The clock on his oven is reading 11:00 pm and he’s tired, way too tired to unpack much more than some of the clothes and toiletries and silverware and plates he’d gotten to taking out earlier, stuff he’ll need sooner than later. Everything else can wait for the morning daybreak, when the flashing lights of the cars outside are replaced with the LA sun that burns just a little too bright for his night loving eyes. 

It would be too late to bother Jose, anyway, if they were in any other profession. Except all of their work is done in the evenings and nights, when the lighting is just a little bit more forgiving on their harsh makeup and the loud beats of the music are socially acceptable. Still, texting Jose to say that he’s in town feels a little bit strange, a little bit presumptuous. 

He’s going to pull a Gatsby instead. Hope that Jose gets the message.

_ Instagram story posted by @bhytes. A panning shot of an empty apartment, stacked high with boxes against the walls and two kennels with open doors, one which has a grey tail sticking out of it. Location: Los Angeles. _

* * *

It doesn’t take long until Brock’s phone lights up with an Instagram direct message notification. He’d fiddled with his settings to have most notifications turned off, his account too bustling to handle the onslaught of fan comments and messages and likes. Most of them, that is, except for his close friends, his family members, and Jose.

He’d never gotten around to turning Jose’s notifications off after they’d broken up, not when he dives for his phone the same way that he used to, back then. 

_ vanessavanjie: LA huh  _

_ vanessavanjie: ur ass finally listened to me _

_ vanessavanjie: all those boxes, ur ass just get here or what _

_ bhytes: something like that _

_ bhytes: drove over yesterday with everything, finally free of the u-haul _

_ vanessavanjie: damn i thought it was only lesbians who u-hauled lol  _

_ bhytes: you around LA these days? _

_ vanessavanjie: i see u watching my stories bitch u already know _

_ bhytes: fair _

_ vanessavanjie: u tired of unpacking everything or what _

_ bhytes: a little, honestly _

_ vanessavanjie: come out _

_ vanessavanjie: can’t be a hermit already before ur even properly moved in  _

Brock doesn’t know why he says yes. Maybe, just maybe, in the back of his mind he does, because the lack of inhibitions from some alcohol and loud music creates the perfect setting in which to see Jose in again, after months and months of only seeing his face behind an Instagram profile. A club setting means no need for the awkward small talk, no conversations about the weather that always happen with people that feel too far away, unreachable, when they used to be close enough to touch. 

Jose’s not hard to find. Not by the way he’s yelling up a storm in the corner of the club with a drink in each hand, surrounded by fellow queens and dancers and spinning in place as if no one’s watching him. And it’s true, no one really is, too busy wrapped up in their own conversations and dance moves.

Except for Brock, because Jose’s like a magnet, one that grabs his sight from far away and refuses to let him go and be free from his pull. Brock can’t tell if his heart is beating faster and faster because of the deep bass of the music, or because of Jose’s smile that lights up his whole face, one that Brock used to see all the time. He fiddles with his baseball cap as he walks over, because his curls had been too hopeless to be tamed by any amount of pomade. 

Not that Jose really cares. He never did, not when Brock used to wear the same sweater for days in a row because he didn’t feel like rifling through his closet, not when Brock couldn’t tell apart Jose’s various outfits even if he tried. Brock’s energy for styling himself is just enough to get himself looking decent in drag. Out of drag? It doesn’t matter much to him. 

Doesn’t matter, until Jose spots him and drops his drinks into the hands of those beside him, walking over with a glint in his eyes and a onceover that’s enough to make Brock pull in a breath.

It’s irrelevant that they’re not together, that they’re better off not as a unit. Because there’s something about Jose that’s magnetic and always manages to pull Brock in, makes him want to sidle up to him, close enough that the familiar scent of Jose’s cologne washes over him from head to toe and makes him close his eyes.

“Sleeping already? You on LA time now.” Jose brushes his fingers along Brock’s wrist and it feels like an electric current, one that travels straight to his heart.

“Moving is tiring.” Brock’s a bit distracted as he answers because Jose’s features are still so stunning, so precisely cut, balanced with the delicate flutter of his eyelashes, the soft curve of his mouth. 

Jose looks the same as he always does, still as if it’s two in the afternoon and he’s fresh after a nap, rather than taking on the weariness that adorns the features of their colleagues from all of the travelling that comes with the job.

“Ain’t thought about asking me for help? We in the same neighbourhood now.” Jose raises one perfect eyebrow and Brock has to resist the urge to reach out, smooth it over, the way that he always used to.

“Didn’t think your small frame would be able to handle the giant boxes.” Brock grins and the light dig is worth it, because Jose lets out a little yell, swats at his arm, the ice shattering as it always does if they spend more than thirty seconds with each other. 

“Forgot what a shady ass bitch you were.” But Jose’s smiling, the kind that reaches his eyes, and Brock knows that he’s not really mad.

Brock catches at Jose’s hand before he lets it drop, turning it over. “Damn. So the tattoo is real, huh?”

He’d had his doubts, because the ink had looked extensive. But Jose’s impulsive, guided by his heart and rash decisions and so it makes sense. The lines are deep within Jose’s skin, pretty patterns along the top of his hand and his wrist and Brock would be mesmerized by it, he would, were it not for the flashing lights of the club making it difficult to clearly see. 

“You think I’d play with some Sharpie just for fun?” Jose lets out a scoff as he wiggles his fingers, letting Brooke get a view from all angles.

“I distinctly remember the time on the season eleven tour when you drew a mustache on Silky while she was sleeping, so yes. You’d play with some Sharpie.” 

The memory makes Brock grin, remembering the cramped tour bus and the things that the queens would get up to in order to pass the time. It feels like a lifetime ago, one that’s been marred by tours that followed and geographical distance and other flings in between. 

“Don’t know if you’d be able to scribble so nicely, though.” Brock flips Jose’s hand over again and Jose pulls it back with a huff, a little pout on his lips.

“I’m a modern day Mother Teresa and invite you out and this is how you treat me. Hateful, truly hateful.” Jose crosses his arms, taps one of his feet and Brock snorts, because it feels like old times. How they always used to act.

“Want me to kiss it better?”

_ Also  _ how they used to act. 

* * *

Maybe it’s a good thing that the dance floor is so crowded, that the WeHo gays have come out in full force on a Sunday night. It lets Brock pull Jose flush against him, a hand on the small of his back, without worrying about cameras or anyone else’s opinions. Because right now, the way Jose is looking up at him is all that matters. 

Rihanna herself, Jose’s patron saint of music is blaring over the speakers and maybe that’s why Jose’s keening into his touch, losing himself in the music. The heat is radiating off of Jose’s body like a fire, and Brock’s not scared of getting burned anymore because he wants it, nights like this. Because he’s here in LA, and Jose’s here in LA, and there’s no rule that says that it’s bad to hook up with an ex after months and months and months, even though his sober mind likes to pretend that there should be. 

Jose’s lips form the familiar pout that Brock knows so well, knows how to answer to. It’s as easy as breathing, kissing Jose. So familiar and  _ right  _ and yet somehow it still makes Brock’s blood pump just a little bit faster, makes his heart skip a beat when Jose whines into his mouth. 

Brock ruts his hips forward slightly into Jose as he nips at his lower lip and it makes Jose gasp, open his mouth more as he deepens the kiss. Sure, they’re doing things on the dance floor that would make any good Christian woman weep but Brock doesn’t care, not when Jose’s in his grasp and so pliant and so willing to be there, wanting more and more. 

Sue him, he’s missed this. Missed the way he can undo Jose so easily, pulling him apart with a strong touch and lips upon his skin. Not discounting how Brock can feel himself unravelling too, his brain only focusing on Jose and his cologne and his hands tugging on Brock’s belt loops and the way his stubble is gently scratching at his skin. 

It’s inevitable, really, when Brock palms at Jose’s crotch, feeling the way he’s already halfway hard in the damn club, not unlike himself. Brock nips at Jose’s jaw before whispering right by his ear, close enough to be heard over the music.

“I’d invite you to mine but my mattress is sitting on the floor. No sheets, either.” Moving is hard, after all. Making a bed takes effort.

“Now ain’t you living like a prince? Mine, then. Reacquaint yourself with that headboard you chose.”

Brock tugs on Jose’s arm in lieu of an answer, already typing in Jose’s address for a Lyft because he still has it memorized, of course he does. 

* * *

“When did you get that new mirror?”

“That really what you focusing on right now?” Jose tugs Brock’s head back down towards him, his kiss biting, taking, and Brock gives into it, lets himself get reacquainted with Jose’s breathing, his smooth skin along his hipbones when Brock pushes the edges of his shirt up. 

“You redecorated, that’s all.” Brock lets Jose push him up against the wall beside the entrance closet, because he gets the feeling that Jose needs this just as much. This bit of release that no one else can even come close to providing, an itch that only the two of them can scratch for each other. The quickies in bathrooms and the rare nights in hotel rooms on tour that were so cathartic, so draining in the best way. 

Brock needs it again now; they both do.

He pulls Jose close with fingers in his belt loops, catching the little hitch in Jose’s breath that matches the way his pupils are blown, his chest rising and falling rapidly. 

“You missed me, huh?” Brock bends down, kissing along Jose’s neck and oh, it’s already starting to bloom in maroons from Brock’s lips at the club. He knows Jose’s going to be pissed later, but he doesn’t care, not really, not when it’s so satisfying to see them there.

“Don’t get cute.” It comes out in a groan, an arch of Jose’s back, a flutter of his eyelids. 

But then Jose regains his breathing as his eyes clear, and he’s pushing on Brock’s shoulders until he’s against the wall, like he has an agenda, like he wants to see it through. Jose’s on his tiptoes in his sneakers but Brock’s not going to make it any easier for him by bending down, because he likes it, seeing how bad Jose wants it, needs it, and is willing to make it happen. Except that he nearly does when Jose’s unbuttoning his pants and tugging on his zipper, dropping onto his knees, and it’s a miracle that Brock is able to keep himself up when he’s missed this sight more than he wants to admit. 

Jose wastes no time in wrapping his hand around the base of Brock’s dick, swirling his tongue around the tip when a bead of precum leaks out and Brock has to squeeze his eyes shut, pull in a sharp breath because Jose’s too good at it, so close to making him come undone before they’ve even done anything. When he opens his eyes Jose’s looking up at him, keeping eye contact as he twists his hand, coordinating it with the movements of his mouth and Brock has to reach down, tug on Jose’s elbow roughly to pull him back up because he doesn’t want to come so fast, not like this. 

Jose’s lips are swollen and his eyes wild and he looks satisfied already, and Brock kisses him partly to wipe that expression off of his face, and partly because he loves the low groan that leaves the back of Jose’s throat when he does.

Jose’s bedroom is the same when he tugs Brock down onto the mattress. There’s an unfamiliar scent of cologne coming from the pillow on what used to be Brock’s side, once upon a time. But Brock ignores it, pushes it away, preferring to focus his attention on Jose and on tugging his shirt off before pulling off his own so that they’re finally, finally pressed up against each other. Jose’s all taut underneath him, his skin hot like coals and it burns Brock in the best way, the heat warming his chest in a way that nothing else can. 

“Hurry up.” Jose’s voice is gruff, his head lifting from his pillow to try and capture Brock’s lips but Brock pulls back, kissing down Jose’s chest and ribs and right above his hip bone. The broken noise that Jose lets out as Brock tugs on his shorts and underwear is worth it, a sound that Brock wants to be able to hear over and over again. 

“Still kept in here?” Brock opens the first drawer on Jose’s bedside table and the lube and condoms are still there, like Brock remembers. 

It’s a weird sense of deja vu - they’ve fucked all over the world, on tour and in between gigs but somehow being back in Jose’s apartment brings a feeling of familiarity, from when they were just beginning, when everything was still fresh and new. Kissing along Jose’s skin, the salty tang of sweat a taste that he remembers from their very first time, one that hasn’t changed. 

Brock holds the condom packet up in question, and Jose shoots him a look. “What, you want me to do it for you, or something?”

“So impatient.” 

“Shut up.” But Jose’s words are cut off in a groan when Brock pushes his legs open, teases his lubed up fingers by his entrance while he presses kisses along Jose’s hipbone, the crook of his thigh. 

He loves seeing Jose come undone like this, so not in control of himself when he’s arching up from the bed, curses falling from his mouth already as Brock curves his fingers, along his prostate. Brock’s close enough himself, already on the edge because his own dick is leaking and he has to focus on the motions of his own fingers to distract himself, to keep going. 

Brock pulls his fingers back when Jose whines, tugs on his arm until he crawls back up and captures his lips again. He lets Jose control the pace of the kiss, lets him deepen it but then hooks an arm under the small of Jose’s back, flips him over so he’s on his stomach, gasping and squirming underneath him. 

He pushes Jose’s legs apart again after he rolls on the condom, kisses up Jose’s spine and by his shoulder until he’s right by his ear. “This okay?”

“Why you taking forever, bitch-”

Brock pushes into him suddenly, drawing in a breath because  _ fuck _ , it doesn’t matter who else he sleeps with, who else he has close like this, because it’s different with Jose. Everything he feels so much stronger with Jose, and it makes his own body feel so much more electrified, so much closer to being bowled over. He tugs on Jose’s hips until he’s off the bed slightly, as close as possible so that he can drive himself deeper, faster. Jose is a mess of moans and swear words that blend into one another as his shaky hands fist in the sheets, his face burying in his own elbow. 

“Fuck B,  _ fuck-” _

Brock makes up for lost time, the distance that’s been between them over the past few months, burying his face in juncture of Jose’s neck and gripping at his skin hard enough to leave bruises. Jose’s letting out broken noises beneath him that make Brock squeeze his eyes shut, push faster, harder, until the headboard is bumping up against the wall. Brock knows Jose’s close, he just needs a little bit more-

Brock lifts Jose’s hips up a little bit more so he can grab his dick, pump it while twisting his hand just the way Jose likes it, not letting up the motions of his hips. And then Jose’s whines become higher in his throat, until he’s coming all over the sheets and on his own thighs. Brock pulls his hand back, grabs at Jose’s hip again and speeds up until he’s gone too, shaking and trembling and trying to catch his breath, his lungs empty and gasping for air. 

He turns Jose over, licks the come off his skin and crawls up until he’s at Jose’s lips, kissing him again and it’s less desperate from both of them now, slower. Calmer. Brock rolls off of Jose, rests on his side, and Jose’s the most beautiful man he’s ever seen, all breathless and fucked out but with eyes that are sparkling, warm. 

Brock’s never going to tire of the sight.

“I just washed these sheets this morning, you ho. Gonna have to wash ‘em again now.” Jose’s voice is gravelly, a smile playing on his lips as he trails his fingers mindlessly along the veins of Brock’s forearm. 

“I’ll help you in the morning.” The words roll off of Brock’s tongue without effort, as if it’s a given that he’s staying over, that trekking back to his own apartment as if this is a one night stand doesn’t make any sense. As if this is a normal occurrence for the two of them.

And maybe, just maybe, Jose’s on the same wavelength too, because he smiles, drops his head on his arm on the mattress. “You better.” 

Brock should be worried, freaking out like he normally does, because this isn’t a random city on tour or an unknown dressing room backstage somewhere. It’s Jose’s room, Jose’s bed, somewhere dizzyingly familiar but Brock’s mind is clear, free of the buzzing thoughts that normally turn his brain into a highway of sorts. 

It doesn’t have to mean anything, not yet, nor does it ever have to. Maybe it’ll just lead to their paths intersecting more often, crossing with one another more frequently because now they’ll have the chance to, living in the same city. They’re not tied down, nor do they have to be. But the way Jose’s already starting to drift off curled into Brock’s side, an arm over his waist, doesn’t feel restricting, not like it should. Not like it used to. It feels more like a homecoming, because Brock can already feel roots burrowing down into the LA soil and taking hold, anchoring him here, making it his home.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Find me at @plastiquetiaras on tumblr.


End file.
